Q&A: House Flipping Still at Home on Reality TV

Boom or bust, flipping never really goes out of style, particularly on reality TV.

“Flip Men” on Spike TV follows two guys flipping homes in Utah, dealing with everything from a former homeowner demanding money to a home with a drive-thru meth lab. The second season is under way.

Cameras follow Mike Baird and Doug Clark as they buy homes at auction — typically without seeing the inside — and then make split-second decisions as they race to get the home back onto the market quickly enough to turn a profit.

Mr. Baird, who grew up in San Diego and attended Brigham Young University, and Mr. Clark, a Utah native and a former airline captain, talked with Developments about their adventures.

WSJ: Tell me how you got into TV.

Mr. Baird: The most interesting part of our show starts at the beginning where we would kick in that door and for the first time we would see what’s behind that door. We were at barbecues and family gatherings with friends and the conversation always turns to, ‘You’re not going to believe what we found today.’ We started doing clips called ‘Foreclosure Cribs,’ a spoof off of MTV cribs.

WSJ: So you really haven’t seen the inside of these houses?

Mr. Baird: When we are scouting those properties at the beginning of the show, [they’re] owned by the previous owners. They’ve owned by Mr. and Mrs. Jones, so we really have no legal right of entering. The legal right becomes ours after we win the auction.

WSJ: The homes are rarely empty. What has been the biggest surprise?

Mr. Clark: This coming Sunday’s episode is probably the biggest. There’s [a lot of] bees. I’m literally looking at Mike and I said, ‘Did we just buy a house or did we buy a $57,000 bee hive?’ It is very hard to negotiate with 100,000 bees. They’re going to win every time.

WSJ: What do you do with all the things you find in these houses?

Mr. Baird: We are legally obligated to store personal belongings for 30 days.

WSJ: Tell me about what you’ve come across.

Mr. Clark: Everything you could imagine, we have found, even in its most pristine condition, that people have walked away from. We have urns full of ashes, wedding dresses. [We’ve also come across] $3,000 cash, vehicles, motorcycles, flat-screen TVs, entire furnished houses.

WSJ: So, after 30 days what do you do with all of the stuff?

Mr. Clark: It goes to the Dumpster, Salvation Army. Most of it, unfortunately, is stuff you don’t want to touch or be around.

WSJ: Have you returned anything to anybody and have they been grateful?

Mr. Baird: We have had people come back and ask for specific items. We had a guy come back and say [there were] 17 golf balls that he wanted. We try to be as absolutely sensitive as possible.

WSJ: What advice would you give anyone looking to flip a home?

Mr. Baird: Really take the time to study and understand specific neighborhoods and their values. That’s what allows us to make last-minute, split-second decisions.

Mr. Clark: [Stick with] the area where you know the local lay of the land.

WSJ: What has been your biggest blunder?

Mr. Baird: Emotion needs to be left at home. We got overly emotional about a property and I think we lost $55,000 and that’s not fun.

WSJ: What is your plan for after the foreclosure crisis ends?

Mr. Clark: What we really do is buy and sell properties. What people don’t understand, too, is even in 2004 there were far more properties to purchase at auction then there are now. [Plus] if someone stops paying their mortgage today, there’s such a lag time that even if everything turned perfect today, there’s years and years of backlog.

Mr. Baird: What you’re doing is you’re buying a discounted home compared to that immediate marketplace and what is going on at that time.